“Hock them and pay for another of your trips?” Harry said, and made his brother laugh. Harry drained his glass and looked at his brother. “Honestly, Vellie, what do we do now?”
“Vellie,” Trevelyan whispered. “No one’s called me that in a long time.” He smiled at his brother. “We don’t do anything. You keep building that big monument on the hill to your dead brother and I continue being Captain Baker. You marry your heiress and raise a few brats and put a new roof on this building.” He paused. “And you send me money for expeditions.”
“It’ll never work. Too many people in the family know who you are. Mother knows what you do.” Harry frowned. “And look at you. You look more dead than alive. No wonder Claire thought you were an old man. You can’t continue to go on five-year expeditions into nowhere. You won’t live another three years.”
“All the better for the family then,” Trevelyan said with some bitterness, then he leaned forward to look hard into Harry’s eyes. “You know as well as I do I’ve never been a part of this family. All I need now is a place to hide until I’m steadier on my feet, then I’ll be off again. If Captain Baker turns out to be alive after all, then it will dispel all rumors that he was part of your family. The earl of Trevelyan died months ago. Leave it at that.”
“But when Mother hears you’re alive she’ll—”
“Tell her someone else has assumed the identity of Cap
tain Baker. Tell her anything. I couldn’t care less what the old harridan thinks—if she does think.”
Harry leaned back in the bed. He might not know his brother well, but he knew him well enough to know there was no use trying to reason with him. “Where are you staying?”
“Charlie’s room.” Trevelyan grinned. “I doubt that anyone will find me there. I can walk early and late so no one sees me, especially since this house is run on Mother’s clock.”
Harry ignored the dig. “Do you have everything you need? Food?”
“I have a man to take care of me and he brings me food. I’m not fool enough to ask how he obtains it.” He paused. “Who’s the child?”
Harry smiled at that. “You mean the little beauty?”
“I’ve only seen her from the window, but she looks to have potential.”
“She’s Claire’s little sister and she’s exquisite. She’s only fourteen now and I can’t imagine what she’ll look like when she’s eighteen or so. She’s an enchanting child but for some reason her father and Claire call her Brat. I cannot imagine anyone less deserving of such a name.”
“Yes, but then you always were an excellent judge of character, weren’t you?”
Harry ignored the remark. Trevelyan’s anger was his own problem.
“I’ll leave you to your sleep now,” Trevelyan said, starting for the door.
“Stay away from her,” Harry said.
Trevelyan paused with his hand on the door. “I don’t want your little heiress. There’s marriage and eternal fidelity in that young woman’s eyes.”
“Marriage to me,” Harry said.
At that Trevelyan turned to look at his brother and there was a combination of both pity and laughter in his eyes. “Marriage to you and your debts and your mother,” Trevelyan said with glittering eyes. “Now go to sleep, little brother.” With that, Trevelyan left the room.
By the time Claire climbed into bed at the end of her second day at Bramley, she was shaking with exhaustion. But it wasn’t exhaustion from having done anything all day; it was exhaustion from having been wrong all day long. For one whole day of her life, everything she had done had been absolutely, completely, and totally wrong.
Yesterday, at Harry’s insistence, because of her injured arm, she had spent the day in bed. She had been cosseted and cared for by the servants. Food had been brought to her on silver trays. Nothing in the world had been too much or too good for her. All in all it had been a lovely day, a day such as she had imagined being a duchess would be like.
But then last night Harry had told her that this morning her real life would start, that it would be good for her to start learning how his family really lived. Claire had asked a few questions and found out that this decree had come from his mother. Claire had asked when she was going to get to meet his mother, but Harry had been vague, saying that it would be soon, but his mother was ill a great deal and stayed in her rooms.
So, this morning Claire had awakened feeling happy and jubilant. She was at last going to be part of Harry’s family. She was going to take her rightful place at his side.
But it had started to go wrong from the first. Harry’s mother had personally chosen a maid for Claire, someone to help her until Claire could find her own maid. At eight A.M. precisely, Claire had been awakened by a thin little woman who could best be described as gray. Her hair was gray, her skin was gray, and the way she held her mouth was gray. She looked as though she had been born with a scowl on her face. She introduced herself as Miss Rogers and asked Claire what she planned to wear today. Claire said she would wear her red wool dress. Miss Rogers sniffed and returned to the bedroom carrying Claire’s dark green wool dress.
At first Claire thought the woman had misheard, but, no, she had heard all right, but Miss Rogers thought the green was better suited for the morning. Claire gave in to the woman, thinking that perhaps she knew better.
Claire went down to breakfast at exactly three minutes to nine and there were at least twenty people waiting to go into the dining room. Claire was quite startled at this as she’d not known there were guests other than her own family at Bramley. She made her way through the people to Harry and asked him to introduce her, but Harry was deep in a discussion about some horse that he planned to buy that day and said he didn’t know who half of them were. “Relatives, I guess,” was all she could get out of him.
Before Claire could introduce herself, the dining room doors opened and all the people went rushing into the room to take their seats. Claire was left standing just inside the door, but a man dressed in livery held out a chair for her. Harry was sitting at the head of the table and Claire’s chair was a long, long way from his.
There must be some mistake, she thought, so she got up and went to Harry. “They have placed me far away from you,” she said.